Italy

This course focuses on the structure of the central nervous system, with particular reference to the morphological bases of clinical and functional neuroanatomy. The course discusses topics including the development of the nervous system; cells of the nervous system; the ventricular system and the liquoral system; the meninges; macroscopic anatomy of the spinal cord; functional anatomy of the spinal cord; spino-thalamic pathways; spino-cerebellar pathways; posterior column pathways; pyramidal pathway; extrapyramidal pathways; esopyramidal pathways; the brainstem; the cerebellum; the diencephalon; the telencephalon; functional anatomy of the telencephalon and of the limbic system; and the anatomical foundations of neurological and neuropathological conditions. The course requires basic knowledge of physiology, biology and biochemistry, and knowledge of cytology, histology, and general embryology as a prerequisite.

This course examines imperfectly competitive markets as well as the behavior of firms in these markets. The course looks at the effects of various business decisions and of various forms of policy intervention on the way firms compete and on the outcome of oligopolistic markets. Prominent recent antitrust cases are also discussed. Topics discussed include game theory, the determinants of market power in static oligopolistic models, strategic positioning and advertising, consumer inertia, collusive agreements, horizontal mergers, strategic and non-strategic barriers to entry, exclusionary practices, and anti-trust intervention. Prerequisites: familiarity with basic microeconomics concepts, in particular with the notion of Nash Equilibrium and Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium, with basic oligopolistic models (such as Bertrand and Cournot models of static competition) and with the fundamentals of unconstrained and constrained optimization problems.

The course focuses on the history of photography from its origins to the present with particular attention to technical and aesthetic developments. Special attention is placed on the role of photography in 20th century art and the application of photography in cultural industries such as fashion, publicity, and media. A section of the course is dedicated to contemporary artistic research and its applications in the field of communication. The first part of the course focuses on photography and art and the topics include the relationship between photography and art, definition/s of artistry in the 20th century, the role of the author and the production of the work of art, the contribution of technology in contemporary art, and contaminations between visual arts and other disciplines. The second part of the course focuses on photography and reality and discusses topics including the role of photography in 19th and 20th century art, the relationship with reality, the role of technology, painting and “ready-made” art, and the work of art and behavior.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the basic algorithms, tools, and systems for the management, processing, and analysis of digital images. Special attention is placed on the design and development of simple systems oriented to real-world computer vision applications such as those requiring segmentation and classification of objects in digital images. The course discusses topics including basic definitions related to image processing and computer vision, image formation and acquisition, intensity transformations, spatial filtering, image segmentation, binary morphology, blob analysis, edge detection, local invariant features, and object detection. The theoretical part of the course is complemented by assisted hands-on lab sessions based on Python and the OpenCV library. Lab sessions cover selected topics such as intensity transformations, spatial filtering, camera calibration, motion estimation, and local invariant features. Students are provided with the software tools, image/video archives, and support that enable practical implementation and testing of most of the topics discussed in class, in order to provide in-depth analysis of the course subject matter.

The course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. The course explores some fundamental moments in the history of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present, focusing on the main methodological, thematic, and theoretical issues that have emerged in the visual arts. Case studies are documented through the support of audiovisual materials. Places for incoming exchange students are limited and are reserved primarily for students enrolled in art related programs at their home university.

This course develops an in-depth knowledge of the venture capital (VC) industry in order to get students be able to carry out an investment analysis in a proper way, taking into consideration all the specific terms and features that affect a VC deal from the investor’s perspective. Moreover, students who attend the course should be able to enter in touch with a real VC deal, to embrace the investor’s angle and to put in practice the know how learnt during the course. The course is split in two parts. The first part is focused on financial features that mark target companies for VC, the VC industry characteristics and the management of VC companies. The second part devotes attention to carry out a comprehensive analysis of an investment opportunity from the VC investor’s point of view. Topics covered include: what is VC and why it exists; what differs entrepreneurial finance from corporate finance; why are VC target firms special, and why and when are they not able to raise capital in the debt market; which are the solutions offered by venture capitalists to the firm’s financial needs, and the relationships between the entrepreneur (the firm) and the outside investor (the VC company); how to read and analyze a business plan from a target company, and business models and revenue forecast; how to invest: organizational framework, strategies, and investment vehicles; investor categories who place funds in the VC industry (financial institutions and pension funds, family offices, corporations, government and local authorities, and informal investors); how to regulate the relationship between general and limited partners ring fenced in investment schemes: disclosure and accountability, incentives schemes, and how to share returns between parties; investment criteria and investment styles (round-financing, milestones, venture debt, portfolio leverage, and exit way); investment valuation: valuation criteria, relevant cash flow, and cost of capital measures; investment valuation: valuation model, and explicit and implicit values; how to put valuation model in practice; and investment decision process: terms of the deal, share price, expected IRR, and investment recommendation. The course recommends students have a background in Financial Mathematics, Accounting, and Corporate Finance as a prerequisite.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the historical and epistemological relationships linking the development of archaeology and museology to colonialism. Special attention is placed on the current debates on decolonization and contemporary movements in countries with a colonial past that involve debates on topics such as repatriation of human remains and artefacts, local curators, and community archaeology. The course places the history of archaeology and museums in a wider epistemological framework and offers a critical analysis of archaeological and museological theory and practice. Students have a chance to apply their analytical skills to professional activities linked with the popularization and public use of archaeological and museum-linked expertise. The course deals with the development of Western archaeological/anthropological enquiry and museum collections in the wider historical and epistemological context of European colonial expansion and follows a roughly chronological order. Starting with the birth of antiquarian practices in the 16th century, the course explores the many ways in which scientific enquiry has been entangled with colonialism. Special attention is devoted to the study of extra-European peoples and pasts, with a specific focus on indigenous America. Selected case studies are explored in order to shed light on the ways in which the entanglement developed over the centuries, stressing not only how archaeological research and collecting practices benefited from European political domination of non-Western countries, but also how academic disciplines have been instrumental in providing the epistemological frameworks which legitimized colonial domination, thus creating a circular, self-sustaining relationship of mutual support. The last part of the course focuses on recent attempts at the decolonization of archeological and museum activities through the implementation of good practices such as collaborative and community archaeology, object repatriation, and indigenous curatorship.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. There are two versions of this course; this course, UCEAP Course Number 188B and Bologna course numbers 29886 and 81714, is associated with the LM in Modern, Post-Colonial and Comparative Literatures and the LM in Geography and Territorial Processes degree programmes. The other version,  UCEAP Course Number 188A and Bologna course number 78696, is associated with the LM in Language, Society, and Communication degree programme.
This course examines languages as cultural features linking the human communities to their territories, history, and geopolitical evolution, with a particular analysis of the changes occurred in the spatial dimension of languages, in connection to acculturation processes and to linguistic policies. In this respect, the course deals with the regional division of the European languages and with the EU language policy both in respect to minority languages and to the process of linguistic education of its citizens. The relationship between linguistic diversity and biological diversity is also explored with a geographical focus on the issue of language death. The course examines the relationship between space/place and language from different perspectives. At the beginning of the course, the students explore the field of cultural geography and its main themes, concepts, and keywords. After having explored the differences between linguistic geography and geographies of languages, the course focus on the second and using both theories and empirical cases, looks at the interconnections between culture, cultural geography, and language geography; language as cultural phenomenon; toponyms and culture; and semiotics of space. Moreover, the course observes how the relationship between geography and language expresses itself in different configurations of bodies and spaces: digital and media spaces, literary spaces, migratory fluxes, terrorism discourses and place-bound semiotics, tourism performance, and cultural and intercultural spaces.